black1blade
Thousand Master
I have a rule that I can only pirate something once. Since I love re-watching stuff, it's a good insentive 
Greg Ayres is my new hero!
- Thread starter HdE
- Start date
ayase
State Alchemist
Finished it now. I think the scanlation guy made a good point, which was that if whoever reads a scanlation buys a Japanese copy of the manga (something I've also done, I think his idea of providing an unofficial translated copy along with selling an official copy was a good one but unlikely to work because his translation would no doubt be uploaded by someone else pretty fast) no-one has really lost out.
Not in agreement with one of Greg's final summaries I'm afraid HdE, like I say I don't buy the slippery slope argument that once people start downloading illegally they stop buying and I think the statement "You either have ethics or you don't" is ultimately meaningless because of the subjective nature of morality.
It's also interesting to note how things have moved on now nearly eight years have passed - Those sites he mentioned with disdain right at the beginning that charged people for viewing fansubs and rips (and were therefore little different to bootleggers)? Whatever people's view of them now, let's not forget that one of those was Crunchyroll.
Not in agreement with one of Greg's final summaries I'm afraid HdE, like I say I don't buy the slippery slope argument that once people start downloading illegally they stop buying and I think the statement "You either have ethics or you don't" is ultimately meaningless because of the subjective nature of morality.
It's also interesting to note how things have moved on now nearly eight years have passed - Those sites he mentioned with disdain right at the beginning that charged people for viewing fansubs and rips (and were therefore little different to bootleggers)? Whatever people's view of them now, let's not forget that one of those was Crunchyroll.
IncendiaryLemon
Captain Karen
Lutga said:
I'd say so. Some people prefer streaming but torrents are of a much higher quality, especially if you go for the large blu ray rips.
HdE
Comic Book Guy
IncendiaryLemon said:
Oddly enough, I had an experience recently which pretty much proves to me that they are.
I left a Facebook anime group recently because, in spite of protests and reporting it to group admins, one regular user was posting pictures pretty much weekly of bootleg DVDs he'd bought through Ebay.
Initially, I suspected he may simply not be aware of the nature of the material he'd bought. You'd think 160 episodes of a TV show for £20 would ring the 'too good to be true' alarm, but some folks get taken in. I mentioned the likelihood of the DVD set being bootlegged, and his response was something along lines of 'Yeah, I don't give a ****. The quality is great and I don't have hundreds of pounds to spend on cartoons.' He also mentioned that he intended to buy bootleg copies of one long running series because it was far cheaper than the official release.
Over the following weeks, he posted more photos in the group. Of hundreds of pounds worth of bootlegs.
Draw your own conclusions.
st_owly (witch)
Time-Traveller
black1blade said:I have a rule that I can only pirate something once. Since I love re-watching stuff, it's a good insentive
That's my rule too. If I like something enough that I want to watch or read it more than once, then I like it enough to buy it.
Lutga said:
I do. I stream where possible as it's definitely more convenient but streams aren't forever and a lot of the stuff I've downloaded isn't available streaming anyway.
HdE
Comic Book Guy
Separate post for this:
I don't think it necessarily holds that everybody who opts to pirate anime ceases buying physical product, either. But moral ambivalence is learned. Every time you do something you know is wrong, it becomes easier to do it again.
I tend to be pretty black and white on these kind of issues. To my way of thinking, morality (and it's really the moral aspect of the piracy debate that interests me) isn't subjective. If you have a clear idea of what constitutes right and wrong, especially where a matter like this is concerned, there aren't really any shades of grey or subjectivity. There's right, wrong, and ill informed. And if you still do wrong when you've been informed... well.
I'll add a heavy disclaimer at this point that everybody reading this thread can do exactly as they please with regard to piracy. It's asking other people to like / accept it that's the sticky point.
I like this point:
It does show how the landscape has changed. Adapt or die, and all that. Also interesting to consider that ADV were very much alive and kicking in 2007. Two years later, we all know what happened.
I struggle to remember what the deal was with Crunchyroll. Wasn't it a site that was viewed as dodgy that got repurposed into something legit with industry assistance, though?
ayase said:
I don't think it necessarily holds that everybody who opts to pirate anime ceases buying physical product, either. But moral ambivalence is learned. Every time you do something you know is wrong, it becomes easier to do it again.
I tend to be pretty black and white on these kind of issues. To my way of thinking, morality (and it's really the moral aspect of the piracy debate that interests me) isn't subjective. If you have a clear idea of what constitutes right and wrong, especially where a matter like this is concerned, there aren't really any shades of grey or subjectivity. There's right, wrong, and ill informed. And if you still do wrong when you've been informed... well.
I'll add a heavy disclaimer at this point that everybody reading this thread can do exactly as they please with regard to piracy. It's asking other people to like / accept it that's the sticky point.
I like this point:
ayase said:
It does show how the landscape has changed. Adapt or die, and all that. Also interesting to consider that ADV were very much alive and kicking in 2007. Two years later, we all know what happened.
I struggle to remember what the deal was with Crunchyroll. Wasn't it a site that was viewed as dodgy that got repurposed into something legit with industry assistance, though?
IncendiaryLemon
Captain Karen
HdE said:
Well, I guess I was just speaking from my own experiences. Buying bootlegs is something I don't understand myself. If you're not going to support the creators, then you might as well just not support anyone and download them for nothing.
ayase
State Alchemist
I think those parts sum up exactly why I believe morality is subjective, because it's dependant on your own personal beliefs, but that's probably a debate for an entirely different thread...HdE said:
Crunchyroll was originally a streaming site that allowed people to upload whatever anime they liked without the authorisation of the creators (or even the fansub groups whose subs they hosted), making HD versions available to those who "donated" to the site. They were streaming bootleggers. Then a venture capital firm invested in them which made them virtually untouchable, the Japanese thought if they couldn't beat them they'd join them and the rest is history. The obvious lesson was that crime pays. Four million dollars and more.HdE said:
In fairness, I suppose in the long run the rise of Crunchyroll has meant that a lot of deserving people who created anime have been rewarded along with the few undeserving people who founded it, and would I rather deserving people suffered if it also meant that undeserving people suffered as well? Well yes, but then that's just my morality.
Smeelia
Thousand Master
I may try to make time to watch some of the videos referred to in the original post but I make no promises (most likely I'll keep putting it off until I forget).
Anyway, I don't mind Greg Ayres and I kind of liked Negima (I think that's one of the voices that people often hate). On the other hand, he played Rathy in Tears to Tiara and I don't think his (Negi) voice worked with her character so I guess I should hate him for that (okay, not really).
Anyway, I don't mind Greg Ayres and I kind of liked Negima (I think that's one of the voices that people often hate). On the other hand, he played Rathy in Tears to Tiara and I don't think his (Negi) voice worked with her character so I guess I should hate him for that (okay, not really).
GolGotha
Death Scythe
HdE said:
I run a stall at anime conventions and sadly this sort of things comes up often. A customer will start the conversation like 'Do you have any of x? I'm currently watching it on y/torrenting it at the moment and it's really good' and 99.9% of the time, these shows are on legal streaming platforms and I will say to them 'Why aren't you watching it on Crunchyroll/Viewster?' and they will say 'Urgh, I hate adverts' or 'I don't want to pay for it' and I have even gone to the extent of offering them a 48 hour crunchyroll pass there and then or informing them that Viewster's console app is ad free, but they decline.
And the same goes for the facebook comment, I've lost counts of the amount of times I've reported sellers to various admins for advertising bootlegs and/or commented on their posts to inform people that they're bootlegs, but sadly a high percentage of people will buy it anyway....
Lutga
Mad Scientist
Someone once explained it to me really well.
Every medium that is heavily pirated will be influenced by the core demographic. Is that demographic time rich / money poor? Then that medium will be heavily pirated - these are people with very little money on their hands to feed their habit, but a lot of time (because they're either still at school, or not working)
Anime, I suppose, falls into this category. By its very nature, because it's often fed by internet savvy youngsters without much money, piracy is naturally rife.
The question, of course, is to make the legal alternative so utterly seamless that it becomes easier to do that than waste hours torrenting etc.
Every medium that is heavily pirated will be influenced by the core demographic. Is that demographic time rich / money poor? Then that medium will be heavily pirated - these are people with very little money on their hands to feed their habit, but a lot of time (because they're either still at school, or not working)
Anime, I suppose, falls into this category. By its very nature, because it's often fed by internet savvy youngsters without much money, piracy is naturally rife.
The question, of course, is to make the legal alternative so utterly seamless that it becomes easier to do that than waste hours torrenting etc.
IncendiaryLemon
Captain Karen
Lutga said:
I'm not sure if ease of use if the only issue. It's what's available. For example, on Crunchyroll, there are probably in the range of 200-300 shows (Can't find an exact number, Wikipedia just says over 200). That's all well and good. However, if you go to the private torrent site I use (I won't disclose the one I'm using) there are 1636 pages of shows with 15 shows per page, giving you a total of 24,540 full series available. That isn't even including OVAs or Movies, which brings it up to almost 55,000. You just can't compete.
Smeelia
Thousand Master
One of the things I find interesting about personal morality is the way that a surprising number of people seem to think it should be one rule for them and another for everyone else. If someone thinks that the world is a battle for survival where anything goes then they really shouldn't be begging for mercy when I have them in my Death Trap and things aren't going their way... Not that I have a Death Trap collection or anything, purely hypothetical.
I suppose believing that you should be able to do what you want regardless of who it hurts isn't really a morality issue so much as a sense of self-importance one. It's not that you believe that what you're doing is right, it's more that you think it's okay because it's you doing it. I find that kind of attitude far more annoying.
I suppose believing that you should be able to do what you want regardless of who it hurts isn't really a morality issue so much as a sense of self-importance one. It's not that you believe that what you're doing is right, it's more that you think it's okay because it's you doing it. I find that kind of attitude far more annoying.
st_owly (witch)
Time-Traveller
I've never tried to delude myself into thinking that it's ok to pirate anime (or any other media) but I do try and mitigate it as much as possible by buying releases of shows I really like and streaming legally wherever possible. I don't like pirating, but for some shows, there really is no other option.
Technically there is always another option, it's just that the investment of time and effort in learning enough Japanese outweighs the benefits for many ^^;
The only thing for which there is genuinely no alternative is generally day-and-date cinema broadcasts, for which foreigners are out of luck no matter how much time or money they invest.
R
The only thing for which there is genuinely no alternative is generally day-and-date cinema broadcasts, for which foreigners are out of luck no matter how much time or money they invest.
R
black1blade
Thousand Master
It is the worst with films yeah. You have to wait 6+ months after it is released in cinemas to get an illegal version. I know patience is a virtue but I'm not waiting for that psycho pass movie! XD
st_owly (witch)
Time-Traveller
Rui said:
Assuming the caveat of consumption in one's own language. Although what if it's a show where the Japanese release is out of print?
